ADAPTED FROM HIS AUDIO SHIUR ON SICHOS HARAN 143

Animalistic eating

Parshas Re’eh asks us to see the choice between blessing and curse—and it places much of that choice at the table: kashrus, ma’aser sheni eaten lifnei Hashem, and the discipline of eating in holiness. In Likutey Moharan, Torah Resh-Samech-Gimel, Rebbe Nachman speaks about kadachas, Rachmana litzlan, an illness that causes a very high fever and intestinal ailments. Rebbe Nachman says that this illness is due primarily to overeating. When a person eats more than the normal amount, he has abandoned the category of human and has become like an animal. As a result, he causes a defect in his mentality, adopting the mentality of an animal. It is this defect, this pegam in da’as, that causes the sickness of kadachas.

In this sichah, Reb Noson brings a further statement by Rebbe Nachman on this topic. There are two kinds of food that are considered animal food. The first involves any kind of excessive eating, and the second is actual animal food being consumed by a human being. Both cause a defect in mentality, which can lead to a high fever. To explain further, Rebbe Nachman says that when a person has da’as, true wisdom, as a human being should have, he then has ahavah and yirah, true love for HaShem and fear of HaShem. He once explained that the three upper sefiros, Chokhmah, Binah and Da’as, are called three mental sefiros, corresponding to the three parts of the brain. Da’as, the third part, is divided into two, which become the first two of the next seven sefiros: Chesed and Gevurah, Din. This is why on one side of the tefillin there is a shin of three heads, and on the other side there is a shin of four heads, illustrating that the three parts of the brain branch out into four (Likutey Halakhos, Tefillin 4:4; see Sichah 142).

Holy fear and love

Chesed, kindness, stands for ahavah, love for HaShem. Din, harshness, stands for fear of HaShem, a fear of that which a person should hold in awe. These are the two parts of da’as, and when the da’as, the brain, the wisdom is in order, a person has this ahavah and yirah of kedushah.

However, when a person acts like an animal, there is a pegam in the da’as; whereupon his da’as turns into ahavah and yirah for that which is tamei. He acquires a desire, a craving for that which is forbidden, ta’avos, evil desires. His yirah also becomes for that which is asur. It is asur, it is wrong for a person to fear animals or humans, because a person’s fear should be confined exclusively to HaShem.

The Gemara says that if a person really acted like a human should, with pure yiras HaShem, he would have to fear no one, because everything in the world would fear him (Nedarim 41a; Likutey Moharan I, 15). Even a lion, the Gemara says, the king of the beasts, would never attack a human that acts like a human, i.e., with yiras Shamayim, because that lion sees a human being; he sees an adam. It is only when a human being acts like an animal that the lion does not fear him. The lion does not see a human, but an animal.

Fear of anything other than HaShem is called yiros nefulos, the wrong type of fear. This results from a defect in the da’as, in the seichel, where the fear of kedushah should be. Rebbe Nachman says that we find this in the pasuk, “Umosar ha’adam min habeheimah ayin” (Koheles 3:19). The human is supposed to be superior to an animal, but ayin; this human has no superiority because he is like an animal. That is when there is tumah. However, when there is kedushah, the word “ayin,” naught, is also called Keser, a crown above (Koheles 3:19). That is the kedushah above from which all the sefiros emanate.

There is another pasuk that says, “Hachokhmah me’ayin timatzei“(Iyov 28:12). Chokhmah, the first sefirah, comes from ayin, from Keser, so “mosar ha’adam min habeheimah,” a person is superior to a beheimah, ayin, if he has the chokhmah that comes from Keser. It is chokhmah, binah vada’as which give him the da’as of kedushah, and then he has the ahavah and yirah of kedushah.

Simchah is the cure

Rebbe Nachman says that medically speaking, if a person is, chas veshalom, stricken with kadachas, the cure is to perspire. A person who sweats out the fever cools off, and the fever goes down. However, in this instance, we are speaking about fever that was caused because of a sin, something mental. Of course, there was a physical act; he overate, but the sin was that he acted like an animal. He blemished his mind.

The cure for this is sweating, zei’ah, which can be induced by a person correcting his mind through simchah (Likutey Moharan II, 6). The greatest cure for any ailment, disease or sickness is simchah (Likutey Moharan II, 24). This is a medical fact. Nothing is more beneficial for a person who is ill than a happy frame of mind. Simchah is the cure for any kind of sickness, and especially for kadachas. True, pure simchah can cure a person mentally, and once his da’as is cured, his ahavah and yirah are cured. He is no longer in the category of an animal and this removes the fever.

Therefore, Rebbe Nachman says, we say at the end of the Hallel, “Zeh hayom asah HaShem nagilah venismechah bo” (Tehillim 118:24), This is the day that HaShem made, we shall be happy and rejoice in it. The first letters of the words “Zeh Hayom Asah HaShem” (‘זה היום עשה י) make up the word ZeI’AH (זיעה), which is sweat, the cure for fever. What does this zei’ah bring about? “Nagilah venismechah bo.” By rejoicing, by being b’simchah b’emes, a person can be cured from this fever, both physically and spiritually. This will elevate him back to the level of a normal human being, who will serve HaShem with true ahavah and yiras HaShem, exclusively.